ιѕαвєℓα (rivaini) wrote in valloic, @ 2021-10-09 22:27:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, the umbrella academy: diego hargreeves, ₴ inactive: isabela |
WHO: Diego & Isabela
WHAT: SAD SOFT TIMES
WHERE: Morningside, their apartment
WHEN: Backdated to after Molly disappeared
WARNINGS: Mostly just le feels?
STATUS: Complete
Diego sat down next to Isabela on their couch. He draped an arm around Isabela’s shoulders and handed her a mug smelling of cinnamon and vanilla. There weren’t very many times when Grace could provide her version of comfort to the Hargreeves, not under the watchful eye of Reginald. But Diego remembered a few insomniac nights where he sat at the table with Grace and she had made him warm milk like he was giving to Isabela. It was probably a programmed response, as most of what Grace did was--but Diego always believed she loved them and did the best she could for them. Funny how he hadn’t thought of those memories until now. He’d tried to compartmentalize thoughts of Grace. Diego had watched her die, he saw her in Vallo and she left, he saw her alive in the past and she didn’t know him, all of it was a lot, so he tried not to. But with Molly gone, and Isabela so sad (alright, maybe he was too) he couldn’t help but think of Grace. “It’s not spiked,” he said, shrugging sheepishly. “Wasn’t sure if it’d curdle or not.” He kissed the side of her head and then tilted his so it rested there. Their apartment was a little quieter now without a rambunctious teenager with super strength. Diego, for all of his insistence on wanting to live a solitary life in a cave somewhere, wasn’t sure that he liked it. “You want to talk? Or we can just sit, I’m good with that too.” Isabela had this mass of knots in her stomach - and that wasn’t something that she particularly liked; whatever it was it resembled a sailor’s ropes all twisted together, and next to that whole mess was a hollowness, a place where she felt like she’d been carved out with a blade. Because Molly was gone, Rufus was gone too (probably for the best - a telepathic cat wouldn’t have done well without his proper owner), and the echo left behind threatened to throw her a hundred stories to the ground and send her spiraling. She hadn’t felt similarly since Hawke disappeared - and that wasn’t as bad as this. At least she knew that the Hawke who had been here was still alive. Probably gone back to Thedas to canoodle with Anders in seclusion or something - who knew. But Molly? Bela didn’t know what became of Molly. She liked to think the girl was happy but in her world, it didn’t seem as if that sort of thing happened too often. “I don’t think anyone’s ever made me warm milk before,” she smirked lightly, taking the mug and leaning against Diego. She synched her breaths with his and that helped, a little - because it grounded her. Reminded her that he was still here - he hadn’t left her yet, the way everyone else did. “She was with us for so long. And I know she wasn’t really ours, and I don’t want to get knocked up or something to try to fill the void - but it was just...nice. Being a little family.” The side of Diego’s mouth tugged up, as it tended to do when he wasn’t quite ready to show what he was feeling. This time, it was because of the connection to something so personal. Only Diego’s nearest and dearest got a glimpse of his squishy soft, tender moments. “Grace would, sometimes. She probably had a better way of doing it, something I’m missing, I bet. But I thought a protein shake maybe wouldn’t do the trick.” Lame joke, he knew, but he wasn’t really aiming for comedy hour anyway. “You did the best you could for her,” Diego promised, with a squeeze to Isabela’s shoulders. That he knew, above anything and everything else. “Which doesn’t make it any easier, no, but it’s not your fault. Getting sent back, coming back, all of it is bullshit.” It was that whole component of not knowing--that at any moment, the life you started to build could be ripped apart, and just when you settled back down, it could be upended all over again. Maybe that was what living in the 60’s had been like for Allison, with a husband and a house and then along came the Hargreeves back on their bullshit again. And still didn’t stop the Kennedy assassination, damn it. Deciding to go on and test the warm milk, Isabela lifted the mug to her lips and took a little sip. Hmmm. Safe to say she never really had a drink like this before in her life (because warm milk was reserved for times of comfort - and her own mother never provided such a thing to her; it was a wonder Bela had survived past infancy thanks to all that neglect) but she was quite sure she liked it. Or perhaps it was simply the gesture itself - what making this for her actually was all about. “No, love,” she protested, tone a leonine sort of purr (and appreciative). “You did just fine. I think your mum would have been proud you got her recipe right.” She cradled that mug in her hands and continued to lean against Diego, wearing one of his t-shirts and not much beneath - just a pair of silky underthings, her legs tucked up on the couch because fuck putting actual trousers on. “All of it is bullshit. Though I don’t regret any of it, you know? Not with her and not with you - even if I disappear I like to think I’ll remember you somehow.” Maybe not the exact details but the way she’d learned what it meant to love someone after a catastrophic loss - she’d know it was possible. And know, as sure and as deep as the sea itself, that the pain would ease up eventually. Diego stayed quiet, not because he didn’t agree of course, but because words and sentiments that weren’t anger or sarcasm took longer to come to him, even now. Not that he didn’t feel anything else, he did, Diego felt so much more than most people gave him credit for. And he was leaps and bounds where he was when he first came to Vallo, spitting and snarling barbs. But it would never come easy to him. “Me either,” he said, finally, absently drawing a pattern on the bare skin of Bela’s thigh. “Regret anything, I mean. There are things I’d do differently, or that I wish hadn’t happened, but regret? Nah.” It was hard to have regrets when this life was better than anything he had back where they were from. He missed Ben and Grace, he would always miss Ben and Grace (and even Luther, which was a true display of growth) but Diego wanted to think that perhaps they would have approved of what he had created for himself. Just the fact that he wasn’t patrolling the streets at night with an axe to grind, that alone was a positive change, but that he had solid and strong relationships with people who had his back in the same way he had theirs. A life that was steady and something he was proud of. “It’s all more than I thought I’d have,” he settled on. “Considering everything. So if this is it, it’s really fucking enough, you know?” “I know what you mean. It’s more than what I thought I’d have too. Everything was just one disaster after another - demons shat from the sky, or some megalomaniac trying to rule the world - and then I got Varric’s letter and...” Isabela trailed off, the mug clenched tighter in her hands. Hawke’s death had broken them both, and she wished she had been close enough to console her friend - but that was the thing about Thedas. You just didn’t get luxuries like that, and you had to find a way to live with it. Her and Hawke had been together-in-spirit-but-physically-apart because she hadn’t wanted to feel tied down and now she was here, in Vallo, and about as tied down as one could be (not being able to leave the world until it bloody well blipped you out) and she was content. Funny how things changed sometimes. Priorities and goals and all of that. “I think a part of me was tired of fighting too. I wanted to know what it was like to come home to the same place everyday. The same person,” she added, scooching in so she could gently grasp Diego’s chin in her hand and bop up slightly to kiss him. “And it’s quite nice, so thanks for that.” Diego huffed a laugh. Laughing was another thing that had come easier and easier as time moved on, something that was revealed as the layers and layers of armor and jagged edges that had surrounded Diego were worn down. They would always be there, Diego would always be someone that was slow to trust and insist he was fine alone. But he wasn’t, he knew that now. He had a small circle, but for that circle Diego would go to war--and importantly, they wouldn’t let him go alone. And Isabela would be leading the charge, he knew that too. He hooked his hands under her thighs to pull her on his lap and set his teeth on the cut of her jaw. Isabela’s skin always had the scent of salt, sun, and spice. “It’s pretty nice,” he agreed. “So thank yourself for that, because it’s all you.” There were other things to do, of course. They had to figure out what to do with the extra room now, with the extra things, with the quiet. And they would. Later. “You want to just sit here for a while?” Diego asked. “Don’t really want to be anywhere else right now.” To his lap, then. Isabela went gladly, situating herself neatly with her knees sinking into the couch on either side of him and her arms draped about Diego’s shoulders. “Then I suppose I ought to pat myself on the back,” she grinned - it kind of hurt her smiling muscles, because she hadn’t quite exercised them in awhile (Molly being on the disappearances list had put her into a bloody awful funk and while she knew she’d crawl out of it, eventually, she just needed a moment or two for wallowing. And to miss the girl with her telepathic cat and her endless amount of silly knit caps and Pokey-thing obsession). “Let’s sit,” she agreed, face pressing against the side of Diego’s throat. She nosed there, seeking comfort and warmth. “I don’t mind being a sloth right now. Because I assume something will come along and require attention or we’ll have to stab another thing. Who knows around here, really.” She’d been here long enough to be able to predict the trends - or at the very least, the rise and fall of them. “Fuck knows we’re amazing at the stabbing,” Diego replied, like he was commenting on the weather. He titled his head back, his eyes closing, the clearest sign he could give that he felt safe. Which was only slightly ridiculous to think about, the idea of safety, Diego sometimes had little regard for his physical well-being. But the emotional well-being, that had never come easy to him. Rather than deal with it, he built up walls, he threw knives. Being emotionally safe, that was an entirely other beast. “We’re going to be okay, babe,” he said, after a minute. “I know it’s shitty now, but you and me? We’re going to be okay.” Bela nodded, her black hair all a mess and probably in need of being tamed - the softness of it brushed against Diego’s throat where she had her face smushed, and it was a rare moment of vulnerability for her. Also a rare moment of showing she felt safe - because like him, she wasn’t always apt to broadcast that or even decide she felt that way much at all. In her world, it just wasn’t like that - safety wasn’t a concept she understood. Maybe a few moments with Hawke, here and there - but that was always ruined and they were apart again, dealing with Thedosian circumstances that usually meant ‘end of the world peril.’ All of this, in Vallo, it hurt right now - but she still felt marginally safer. And she knew the hurt would pass and she’d think back on all of those happy times with Molly, and she’d process her grief in the way she knew was actually going to be good for her - she’d done it once, she could do it again. “We’ll be okay,” she agreed. “You know I love you, right?” Of course he knew. But it was still nice to say sometimes. “I know.” Diego confirmed. He did know too, it wasn’t just a platitude. And that had been a journey in and of itself, really, but one he was forever grateful to be on with her. “Love you.” Those were words that, once he’d said them, came out of his mouth without a hint of the stutter that had plagued Diego. Like the blockage that kept words from coming out had loosened enough. He was glad he could say them, Isabela knew he loved her as well, but he never wanted there to be a question. Yeah, he thought, as he combed through Isabela’s hair. They would be okay. |